The following is a brief excerpt from Tattoo History: A Source Book, by Stephen G. Gilbert now available in print.

Tattoo History Source Book: The Circus

The popularity of tattooing during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century owed much to the circus. When circuses prospered, tattooing prospered. When circuses went bankrupt, tattooed people and tattoo artists were out of work.

For over 70 years every major circus employed several completely tattooed people. Some were exhibited in sideshows; others performed traditional circus acts such as juggling and sword swallowing. Rival circuses competed with each other for the services of the most elaborately tattooed show people and paid them handsome salaries. Many of the old-time tattoo artists made most of their money while traveling with circuses during the spring and summer, returning to their shops and homes in the winter. The circus served as a showcase where tattoo artists could attract customers by exhibiting their work to a paying public, and in many cases the only surviving records of the great early tattoo masterpieces has come down to us in the form of photos and posters which were used for circus publicity.

The love affair between tattooing and the circus began in 1804 when the Russian explorer George H. von Langsdorff visited the Marquesas. There he found Jean Baptiste Cabri, a French deserter who had lived for many years among the natives. During this time Cabri had been extensively tattooed and had married a Marquesan woman who bore him several children.

Cabri returned with Langsdorff to Russia where he enjoyed a brief but successful theatrical career in Moscow and St. Petersberg. Langsdorff reports that ³although he has by degrees become reconciled to European customs, he still thinks with delight of the men whom he formerly killed and exchanged for swine, or perhaps ate.² Cabri told such extravagant tales of his adventures among the savages that, according to Langsdorff, ³ anyone who heard him relate them would be disposed to think himself listening to a second Munchhausen.²

After working for a year as a swimming instructor in the Marine Academy at Cronstadt Cabri resumed his theatrical career and toured Europe, where he was examined by distinguished physicians and exhibited to royalty. But within a few years his career went into decline. During the last years of his life he was forced to compete with trained dogs and other popular amusements in country fairs. In 1812 he died, poor and forgotten, in his birthplace, Valenciennes.